Books: As the Voyagers Saw It

"It was midnight of October 11-12 and the whole course of world history
was going to change forever in just two hours more. Nobody quite
realized that. But every man in the fleet, from the Admiral to the
smallest page boy, was tensely alert . . . 'Tierra! Tierra!' bawled
[the lookout on the Pinta] . . . The ship's biggest piece of artillery,
a 'lombard,' had been standing, loaded and primed, ready to fire a
signal the moment there was news . . . 'Bang!' went the lombard. North
America had been discovered."